I don't get all the Apple Store hate. I've had nothing but positive experiences there.
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Angela Ahrendts Talks Concepts Behind Next-Generation Apple Stores at Most Powerful Women Summit
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Most Apple Stores are crowded enough as it is, especially during weekends - if you offer people coffee, many would never leave.
Hahah, Angie, you must be on some good drugs... Come by the Eaton Centre store in Downtown Toronto and see if you can squeeze a sketch artists or a guitar player in there... Guarantee you can't, and if you did, they'd bolt out of there within 30 minutes because of the crowd and the noise...
HINT... invest in a bigger store. It's the same one for 10 freakin years. Going to a genius bar appointment is worse than having teeth pulled, having to shove your way to the back and then waiting to find the right person to check you in.
Separate the service & product areas.
Agree. The store aesthetic crossed over from carefully minimal to carelessly clinical. There's less information available on display, the staff is pulled from all directions, products are haphazardly scattered on bland wooden tables -a waste of space really.
I half-agree. Ahrends and Iovine have been cringe-worthy expensive additions to the top team, but Steve also made notable mistakes, like Sculley. Cook is a lot like the latter. He's the line guy, the supply chain maniac who convinced Jobs to move production to China. Like Ballmer, he caps a company's future for higher temporary margins. Him and the other smug executives (Schiller, Cue) are simply coasting towards retirement.
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Look, she can't really control the product mix or release schedules. That is not her role.
However, I would expect someone with that level of compensation to run stores that are incredible shopping experiences. Right now, Apple Stores are no better run than shoe stores and I am sure that their heads of retail don't get multi-million dollar salaries. I actually dread dealing with the hassle of an Apple Store and that is something that SHOULD NEVER cross a customer's mind.
However, I would expect someone with that level of compensation to run stores that are incredible shopping experiences. Right now, Apple Stores are no better run than shoe stores and I am sure that their heads of retail don't get multi-million dollar salaries. I actually dread dealing with the hassle of an Apple Store and that is something that SHOULD NEVER cross a customer's mind.
Every store is different. They all have a different manager (that has their own focus), which results in different experiences between stores, IMO.
The store I worked at had three store managers cycle through over the years. First and third were always on the sales floor, watching how things went and directing/coaching. Second manager had a 15-year prior career with Circuit City and their focus was more "running the store from the office" and on meeting sales numbers. Customer and employee satisfaction (NetPromoter) scores dropped when the second manager was in charge.
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I know this won't be a popular opinion on MacHaters.com but I've never had a bad experience at an Apple store. But since so many who post here love to hate everything about Apple these days I guess I shouldn't be surprised they're ripping the store experience too. Does make me question how much of it is legit vs. just making crap up.
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I've also had nothing but poor experiences lately. The genius bar is a disaster. I work in IT, and wind up bringing in products for repair all the time. I haven't been seen at my designated appointment time in the past 6 months. Late late late. Always running behind. Employees with the technical knowledge of your average chimpanzee. 2 hours to replace a camera on an iPhone. 3 hours (REPEATEDLY) total time for a simple iPhone repair or replacement is unacceptable. Service loaners. 20-30 minutes to replace a lightning cable. Taking away the ability to make a genius bar appointment from the mobile app.
Haven't you noticed that Apple is making it harder and harder to get to a person for service? They'll try and pawn it off as trying to help customers help themselves, or improving the experience, but that's all ********. It's really about hiring fewer employees, and paying the ones the do employ less and less.
The genius bar has been going backwards since 2011.
the stores used to be great, famous for its service.
nowdays it's a horrible mess, i had to wait 30 minutes just to find someone to let me try on the apple watch. Everything is reservation which defeats the whole purpose of a retail store that serves walkin.
she hasnt done anything good for the apple store, only made it much worse.
nowdays it's a horrible mess, i had to wait 30 minutes just to find someone to let me try on the apple watch. Everything is reservation which defeats the whole purpose of a retail store that serves walkin.
she hasnt done anything good for the apple store, only made it much worse.
Sounds like your store has a problem there. You should get a "how'd we do?" email after every appointment. Are you filling them out and rating them low? At the store I worked at, managers were required to call back every customer that was unsatisfied.
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The stores used to be a lot less busy, too. A lot less. Seems like reservations are how other busy places handle high volume. Doctors offices, restaurants, etc. You can't just walk into those places (when they're busy) and be seen immediately. How would you have Apple handle it?
I agree with you.
But I really believe teaching Swift (though I wish it was a more applicable language to IT) can actually improve the community.
IF executed correctly, fostering an environment of coding education at Apple Stores is something that I believe Jobs and Johnson would have approved of and could make a huge impact in a community, given that workshops and trainings are free, so are the Apple Field Trips. Sending a child regularly to the Apple store as an after school program could greatly help the child, especially where schools are underfunded and have no technology programs.
That being said, I don't see this is as the direction Apple is going under Ahrendts. Cancelling the One to One program, and stationing the "Creative Pro" in the Product Zone tells me that this is a glorified sales / setup position.
Also the idea that there is a "Pro" creative undermines the other Creatives in the store. Lead Creative was the team leader and the quarterback of the team, in a way. But Creative Pro sounds like it's someone who is smarter than other creatives. If this is the case, if I am certified in more than my Creative Pro, shouldn't I get the position? This seems like commodifying employees.
It would seem to me that having control over Retail that she would have input as to product allocation and release. Now agreed that Tim cuts it too close on the pipeline, but should there not be some collaboration between supply, marketing and retail? Or do we just give in that the 'supply/demand' thing is just marketing.
It's not like the folks responsible for those areas don't meet every Monday morning for a few hours (according to a bunch of articles on how Apple runs).
Nope. Last couple of visits to my closest Apple Stores has had ridiculous wait times and understaffed genius bars. Poorly organized chaos, at best. Its too bad there aren't any third party Mac stores in the Inland Empire.
St Louis has a nice third party Mac store called MacHQ, it was a million times better than going to an Apple Store.
I do agree there seems to be less structure in the Apple stores now, but this move toward "liberal arts" merely reflects a cultural shift from modernism to postmodernism. Many people want to experience a product and then have it explained to them.
Wow. The level of sarcasm and disgust on this article is sad. Do you people just sit around and decide that you are smarter than everyone on the planet to boost your egos? This is an informational article about an Apple related story that really didn't need your comments. Stay productive people.
Angela Ahrendts, Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail, was the opening speaker for Fortune's annual Most Powerful Women Summit, speaking a little about the next-generation Apple retail stores, her vision for Apple's physical presence and more.
Ahrendts started the evening by talking about her background and how Apple CEO Tim Cook recruited her, mentioning that she originally tried to convince Cook she wasn't right for the job. Ahrendts said that her big pitch for Apple was to integrate Apple's retail and online stores and turn the company's physical prescence into a bigger part of the communities they operate it. Cook, much to her surprise, loved the idea.
She said that she believes that "the bigger the company, the bigger the obligation" of that company to do something other than rake in profits. One of the things on her agenda was education, so Ahrendts planned on a next-generation of Apple retail stores that could function as something more than retail stores.
The new next-generation store designs are the culmination of that vision, featuring a town square concept that's focused less on selling things and more on enriching lives. She notes that the retail side of the company tries to hire candidates based on their empathy and compassion so that they can enrich lives rather than salesmanship. For instance, Apple wants to teach kids things they can't learn in school, which is why the retail stores will start hosting Swift programming lessons for kids, teachers, and parents.
The lessons, which are currently available for teachers at Apple Union Square in San Francisco, will slowly roll out to next-generation stores by next year. Kids, teachers, and parents will be able to attend Apple retail stores and learn to code for free three times a day. Currently, Apple provides educational camps for kids during the summer.
Another driving force behind the next-generation stores was making the retail spaces represent the products better. "How do we make it so the best of Apple can come together in one place?" Ahrendts said they asked as they designed the new stores. Their solution was to map out everything people did on their devices and integrate them into the stores, which meant a larger focus on the liberal arts.
Ahrendts said that she's always been in a believer of Steve Jobs' "technology married with the liberal arts" philosophy, and that she wanted to increase the presence of liberal arts in the stores. She explained the new Creative Pro position at Apple retail locations is the liberal arts equivalent of the Genius, and that the two are equal in terms of importance. Creative Pros are supposed to help you figure out what to do with your Apple product, which could range from photography lessons to coding to learning how to make movies or music.
Another way of integrating the liberal arts with the retail stores is turning the stores into community centers. "On the weekend you'll see an artist sketching things or a guy playing a guitar," Ahrendts said. The goal is to help foster human experiences that draw people out of their digital bubbles. The town square concept also extends to naming. The accessory-laden "avenues" represent avenues bordering a town square, while the giant screens are called "forums" because they act as a hub for many activities.
Finally, Ahrendts said she considers the retail store the biggest product Apple has. Employee retention is also strong, with Ahrendts saying they have an 87 percent retention rate, better than the average retail retention rate of 20 percent. The company plans to have 95 next-generation Apple stores open by the end of the year.
Ahrendts has been the head of Apple's retail efforts since 2014, when she left her job as CEO of Burberry to join the Cupertino company. Earlier this month, Ahrendts had her title shortened from Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores to just Senior Vice President of Retail, reflecting Apple's new vision of tightly integrating its online and retail efforts. Similarly, Apple dropped the "Stores" from Apple store branding in August, reflecting a more singular experience as well as Apple's efforts to turn the store into more than retail outfit.
Article Link: Angela Ahrendts Talks Concepts Behind Next-Generation Apple Stores at Most Powerful Women Summit
I've met truly kick ass women. They don't need BS summits. You also don't see them complaining about how supposedly hard it is for women. They just simply do their work like everyone else and are damn good at it.
Please tell me about all the apple board meetings you sit in where you see Ahrendts contribute or not contribute.
I suspect the hate comes from people who are unhappy with life and where they are. Hating gives them some power (they believe), and the opportunity to feel better about themselves exercising that power by trashing some person or some company.
Smartphones and tablets are what's killing the Mac. It's a natural progression.
Mainframe programmers called mini computers a toy; mini computer programmers called micro computers a toy; PC users called Macs a toy; not surprisingly, now Mac/PC users are calling iPads a toy.
Toys always win out, it seems.
The resentment that I sense about the excesses of political correctness is so strong that it could usher in a new era of fascism. I am not even joking.
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That is just saying that the computing power of devices continues to increase, which is just a platitude. BTW, Moore's law has started to slow down as smaller fabrication sizes become problematic.
I await Tim Cooks words from the most powerful men conference with baited breath.
no, what's sad is what is forum has become. haters and whiners have basically ruined it.